He slammed both hands against the top of the car in rage. “Shit!” he thundered angrily.
As he stood there, fuming, he could just make out three helicopters in the distance, their powerful searchlights probing the darkness in an ever-widening pattern whose epicenter was over the exact part of town at which the handoff was supposed to have taken place. They were looking for Kira Miller. Somehow he was sure of it.
But he was beginning to doubt they would catch her.
Who in the hell was she? he thought in frustration.
And what could she possibly have done to warrant this kind of attention?
PART ONE
Pursuit
1
Ten Months Later
David Desh stopped at the gatehouse and lowered the window of his green Chevrolet Suburban as a uniformed guard approached him. “David Desh to see Colonel Jim Connelly,” he said, handing the guard his driver’s license.
The guard consulted his clipboard for several long seconds, examined the license, and then handed it back. “Go right in, sir, he’s expecting you. Welcome to Fort Bragg. Do you need directions?”
Desh smiled wistfully and shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ve been here before.” He rolled past the guard station, halfway expecting to be saluted as he passed.
The leaves of several of the trees peppered throughout the sprawling North Carolina base had transformed into a pageant of striking colors in the cool autumn air. It was the most picturesque season to return to Fort Bragg, home of a number of military units, among them USASOC; the US Army Special Operations Command. It was also home to the unit in which Desh had served; Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta, tasked with counterterrorist operations outside the United States.
As Desh passed many familiar buildings and landmarks, including a three-story climbing wall, eighty-foot rappel tower, and Olympic-sized training pool, he fought to suppress a number of conflicting emotions that welled up inside him. This was his first time back to Bragg since he had left the military and his return was bittersweet.
He arrived at his destination and parked. A few minutes later he entered Jim Connelly’s office, shook hands firmly with the uniformed man behind the desk, and took a seat facing the colonel, lowering his briefcase to the floor beside him as he did so. Desh had been in this office many times before, but never as a civilian. Books on military history and strategy were organized in perfect precision on a bookshelf. The colonel was an accomplished fencer, and a large, framed photograph of two fencers locked in battle, shot in vibrant clarity by a professional photographer, was centered behind his desk.
The colonel had angular features, light-brown hair of military length, and a matching, neatly trimmed mustache. At forty-eight, he was seventeen years Desh’s senior, but despite their different ages each man had an aura of fitness, competence, and easy self-assurance that was typical of those who had undergone the rigorous training demanded of the Special Forces.
“Thanks for coming, Captain,” said Connelly. He raised his eyebrows. “I guess I should be calling you David nowadays.”
Desh sighed. “Disappointed?”
“What, that you left the service?”
Desh nodded.
“After what happened in Iran, who could possibly blame you?”
Desh had been found nine months earlier in a bloody heap just on the Iraq side of the Iraq/Iran border, the only surviving member of his team after an operation in Iran had gone terribly wrong. He had lost three men who had each been like a brother to him. Desh found himself revisiting the horrific mission often, cursing himself for not being smarter, or faster, or more careful. He blamed himself for the deaths of his men and was consumed by guilt for being alive when they were not. The psychiatrist the military had provided insisted this was a natural reaction, but this knowledge brought him little comfort.
“I’m not sure you answered the question,” persisted Desh.
“Okay then,” said Connelly. “As a Special Forces colonel, I am disappointed. You’re as good as it gets, David. Bright, decisive, innovative. I hate to lose a man like you.” He opened his mouth to continue but thought better of it.
“Go on,” prompted Desh.